Seattle Times Op-Ed Takes Some Swings at Highly Capable

From The Times - What if you raised expectations for students? This Seattle school did

 Colin Pierce, bottom left, original coordinator for the International Baccalaureate at Rainier Beach High School, takes a selfie with his former students, 10 years after graduation. Former Principal Dwane Chappelle, now director of Seattle’s Department of Education and Early Learning, stands in the background. (Colin Pierce)

See that guy bottom left? That's Colin Pierce, a long-time teacher and coordinator of the IB program at Rainier Beach High School. I met him early on when he was at RBHS and there is not a more positive person in SPS. He was willing to beg or borrow to get the IB program off the ground. 

Sadly, Mr. Pierce is no longer at RBHS; I'm not sure where he is now and the op-ed doesn't say. 

This op-ed could have been more about what Pierce did to secure IB to RBHS and what he said to get kids to sign up. But instead, Ms. Rowe wrote:

“Mostly, it consists of testing elementary school children for membership in the “Highly Capable Cohort,” where students remain with the same group of smarty-pants kids through middle school.
Then, as teenagers, they funnel into Advanced Placement courses, which exist in greater numbers at some high schools than others."

Why the derision for these students, name-calling them? And, if there are more AP courses at some high schools than others, know who is to blame? The district. (To note, there are now AP courses at all the comprehensive high schools that don't have IB.)

This exclusionary approach came to look like racial segregation because there were so few Black or Latino kids in Highly Capable classrooms, and it rankled parents for years.

And again, whose fault is this? The district created and ran this program and did very little to get more students of color in.

I am so happy that Rainier Beach HS finally got their rebuild. I do want to note that there are still two SPS high schools - Ingraham and Chief Sealth - that never got a complete rebuild. Ingraham HS has had piecemeal builds over the years and, while Sealth was upgraded, it was Denny Middle School that got a brand-new school.

Also, the district has a new and dubious honor - RBHS's rebuild now ranks it third in the most costly public high school buildings in the United States.

The highest cost public high school building is the Robert F. Kennedy High School in Los Angeles at a whopping $578M. In second place, there's another LA high school but look who is now in third place - RBHS at $275M. It replaces Central No. 9 Visual and Performing Arts High School in LA which cost $232M.

Comments

Stuart J said…
I think I found him, he's listed on the Dept of Early Learning page for the City of Seattle. https://www.seattle.gov/education/fepp-levy/school-based-investments
8/22/25, 11:40 PM
Anonymous said…
Yes we are all tired of the bullying that happens to HC kids, but I think it is important to ignore the snark for a moment and register that SPS for once (at least partially) did this the right way - rather than lowering expectations for everyone they raised them. This is what studies show actually works to achieve equity. We should be talking about what is working there, what is not, how to make it better, how we raise expectations similarly throughout SPS.

High expectations matter
8/23/25, 5:35 AM
Melissa Westbrook said…
High Expectations, absolutely. However, way back in the '90s, the Times had a story about (I believe) Maple Elementary and how they were using Spectrum level teaching for the entire school. (For those of you who don't know what Spectrum was, it was the next level down from HCC.) And know what? They were getting great results.

That experiment worked. And promptly went nowhere. So disappointing. This district doesn't know how to duplicate results.
8/23/25, 11:21 AM
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